


Whiskers on Kittens

by chaosmanor



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Fic Exchange, Kittens, M/M, Puppies, mention of harm to animals, mention of vivisection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-26 07:38:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/648156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosmanor/pseuds/chaosmanor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a reason that particular organization doesn't have a standing kill order on Aisha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whiskers on Kittens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Franzeska](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Franzeska/gifts).



> Title is from "My Favorite Things", written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein.

Aisha paced Clay's living room, stepping over Jensen's feet each time she circled the sofa. She was excited, or determined, or something, shaking her finger at Jensen in a way that frankly worried him.

"What?!" Pooch said, when Aisha had stopped talking and drawn a breath. "You want us to do what?"

"C'mon," Aisha said. "It's only a small extraction, you all owe me big time, and I owe my contacts my annual contribution."

Jensen put down the magazine he'd been trying to hide behind. "That's not a small extraction. A tooth is a small extraction. An appendix is a small extraction."

"Fuck yeah," said Pooch. "Any job that requires a truck and this much effort is by definition a large extraction."

Cougar winced clearly and gave a minute nod of his head, supporting Pooch and Jensen.

"Clay?" Jensen asked. "Are you actually in favor of this… this…" Jensen flailed his arms around, unable to work out how to express his unmitigated horror at what Aisha was outlining. "This unmitigated horror," he finally said, since the rest of the team was staring at him expectantly. Well, apart from Cougar, whose hat he had knocked off accidentally. 

Uh oh. Cougar. Hat. Jensen was in trouble.

Clay shrugged. "It's a reasonable request from Aisha. This is a low risk job."

Cougar glanced at Jensen in stoic resignation to their fate, but Jensen wasn't giving in without a fight.

"But I have allergies!" Jensen said. "This is dangerous for me!"

"Take antihistamines," Aisha said.

The animals on her PETA anti-vivisection T-shirt were staring at Jensen accusingly. He slumped sideways on the sofa, against Cougar, avoiding the hat that time. "Okay," he said. "I'll do it, but this is me saying I'm not happy."

Cougar patted Jensen's shoulder sympathetically, and Jensen sighed and hid his face against Cougar's shirt sleeve. 

 

The lab had classy security. Jensen was impressed, once he'd got past being annoyed that something that should be so easy was taking him time, actual time, and effort.

"What are they keeping locked in there?" Jensen asked the rest of the team, while he broke in to Aisha’s target lab using a jacked connection from the chemical supply business next to the bar.

They ignored him and continued drinking beer and playing pool in the otherwise empty bar. 

"Money? Weird-assed porn?" Jensen asked, mostly to himself.

"Stop whining," Aisha said. "Anyone would think this was your first time engaging in corporate espionage."

Jensen muttered and went back to social-engineering his way through the third layer of hostility around the security protocol files.

Behind him, he could hear Clay and Aisha setting up the new break on the pool table while Pooch ordered the next round, shamelessly putting it on Aisha’s tab.

A moment later, Cougar silently swapped Jensen's empty beer bottle for a full one.

"I love you," Jensen said to Cougar. "It no longer worries me that I can't hear you behind me."

Cougar patted his back and returned to the pool table.

Jensen kicked himself mentally. He had a secret bargain with himself that involved him making no potentially unwanted, creepy displays and statements of affection to Cougar, in exchange for fewer of his recurring dreams involving sweaty bodies and mustaches.

Jensen's dream life tended to look like bad, hairy porn anyway, despite keeping tight control over his waking thoughts.

His actual porn looked like good, hairy porn, and really, any of the team that opened his hotel room door without waiting for permission deserved to know that.

Clay poked him with a pool cue. "Problems?".

"Why would a research facility use TrueCrypt?" Jensen glared at his laptop screen, which was refusing to let him into the hidden folder-inside-a-folder. "What the fuck are they worried about?"

"Us," Clay said. 

"Hmmph," Jensen said, setting his randomizer algorithm to find the passcode and encryption key for the hidden folder. "Cougar? Want to beat me at pool while this runs?"

When Jensen looked up, Cougar was leaning against the other pool table and holding out a pool cue to Jensen.

Jensen took the offered pool cue. "You're my favorite. I'd marry you, if the fine state of Illinois would let me."

Cougar winked at Jensen and reached out to rack up the balls for the break. While Cougar's back was toward him, Jensen smacked himself in the head with his pool cue.

 

Clay pointed at the floor plans Jensen had retrieved, on the big TV screen in his living room. "Jensen bypasses the security, here, Pooch drives the truck around to the fire escape doors. Once inside, we pop the main doors of the lab and start moving the targets out of the lab and into the truck. Questions?"

Cougar raised his hand.

"No, we don't need long range support," Clay said. "You're in with us. Are we all clear?"

"Personnel?" Pooch asked.

"Their security team will be watching the match on the main screens," Clay said. "Jensen is going to feed them a game they can't resist."

Jensen nodded. "Bulls versus Knicks, going into overtime."

"You can do that?" Pooch asked. "Won't they know it's a replay?"

"It's not a replay, so much as an artefact." It was art, pure art, and Jensen was damned pleased with what he had produced. 

The team were silent for a moment, hopefully appreciating the awesomeness of Jensen's skills. Then Pooch asked, "So? Last weekend, when we bet on that game between the Knicks and the Celtics?"

Jensen grinned. "I needed to test the process first."

"During the diversion, we load the targets onto the truck," Aisha said taking over from Clay. "Then run the truck through the main gates."

Jensen was relieved the team turned their attention to her and stopped glowering at him. They should know better than to bet against him if the wager involved anything that he could possibly rig. 

"Where's the drop off?" Pooch asked.

"I'll get a text once we’ve collected the targets," Aisha said. 

Jensen was unhappy. It was safer to isolate the pick-up information until the job was underway, but with a few exceptions, he preferred to know everything about everything.

Pooch grumped. "How much gas should I put in the truck? If we're heading for Canada, I'll need fake Canadian manifests and shipping authorities."

"Assume we're not going to Canada," Aisha said.

Cougar nudged Jensen and nodded meaningfully. "Canada," Cougar said, patting Jensen's knee. "Different laws from Illinois."

"What?" Jensen asked, but Cougar had turned back to listen to Clay, and was chewing his lip thoughtfully.

"Aisha will be issuing the ammo for this job," Clay said. "Cougar? Bring a rifle, just in case."

"We agreed…" Aisha said. "The terms were negotiated clearly. This is a no-kill job!"

Clay waved a hand at her. "And if people start shooting at us, we'll be glad we have some explosive rounds on us as well."

One of the things Jensen put a lot of effort into knowing as little as possible about was Clay and Aisha's private relationship. He was still certain that Clay was going to have pay for that order, probably in a particularly dirty way. They were so married.

Jensen kind of envied them.

 

The laboratory they were breaking into was inside a large pharmaceutical research facility. The security on the ground was absurd, in Jensen's opinion. Really? Since when did a company engaged in legitimate commercial activity need both infrared and sensor pad external security? Were they worried that someone would land a chilled chopper on their lawn? 

Hmm, a chilled chopper? Jensen would keep that in mind the next time the team wanted to get inside somewhere with robust infrared sensors. Pooch was bound to be able to work out how to freeze a chopper enough to hide the heat signature.

"Are we ready?" Clay asked, from across the truck. "Any time now would be good."

"Hang on," Jensen said. "I'm queuing things…"

The text box on Jensen's laptop scrolled. "We're good. The plant is now expecting a delivery of dog kibble, and by the time we get waved through, the security cameras will be looping."

Over the comms, Pooch said, "We're rolling." 

The newly re-liveried truck, complete with a logo of a puppy on both sides, rumbled into motion again.

Jensen closed his laptop and ducked behind the sacks of stolen dog kibble with the rest of the team. Pooch, alone in the cab with the fake order forms and manifest, had to do the hard work of getting past the perimeter guards.

Pooch's comm was live, so they could all hear him chatting to the security guards at the gate. Seconds later, the rear doors of the truck swung open and a flashlight flickered around the interior of the truck.

The wall of kibble sacks kept the team hidden, and the doors swung shut again.

"Go on through," someone called out, and slapped the side of the truck, hopefully not dislodging the puppy logos. "Delivery dock is past the second building and to your right."

"Thanks," Pooch called back, and the truck rumbled into motion.

Aisha unfolded herself from behind a stack of empty crates and unholstered her weapon.

"Jensen?" Clay asked, from behind another pile of crates. "We're waiting on your call."

"Hang on, hang on," Jensen muttered, opening his laptop again. His VPN connection to the facility's mainframe was reassuringly live, and he could still see the distraction game running. He shut down the security system at the specific lab they were targeting. "We're on!"

The truck came to a halt, and the team were out the back door and moving, pistols and empty carry-crates in their hands, ski masks over their faces. Cougar had on his night-time stealthy hat, which was matt black.

Clay swiped the security pass Jensen had given him across the pad on the fire door, then opened the door. They filed in, Clay at the front, Jensen second, the tablet on his belt also connected to the VPN.

At the main doors of the lab, Clay held up his hand and Jensen ran his EMF meter to confirm local security was down.

Jensen nodded, and Clay opened the doors to the lab. The lab was mostly in darkness, apart from the faint glow of the exit signs. 

Clay shone a flashlight around the lab. Behind the workbenches and VDU screens, Jensen could see rows of cages lining the walls, and the stench of urine hit him through his ski mask.

"Targets are acquired," Clay said over his earpiece. "Break out the kibble…"

Pooch, Clay and Aisha slithered around the lab against a background of meowing and whimpering, and Jensen could hear Pooch whispering, "Nice puppy, good puppy. Don’t bite me, puppy."

The animals in the cages began to stir, the noise levels rising, as Pooch, Clay and Aisha passed handfuls of kibble into each cage. While the animals were distracted by the kibble, Cougar put them into the carry crates.

With the first load of crates, Cougar pushed past Jensen, looking weirdly naked without his usual SR-25. Jensen kept his eyes on the screen of his tablet for signs of response from the security system.

This was not the time to have "weirdly naked" and "Cougar" simultaneously in his thoughts.

A dog started to bark, and a moment later, an air pistol whooshed, delivering a shot of tranq. The dog went quiet. 

"Anyone else wanna make noise?" Clay asked over the earpiece, talking to the animals. "Anyone?"

Aisha made a "meow" sound over the comms, and Pooch and Cougar chuckled along with Jensen. 

"Very funny," Clay said. "Stay focused, people."

Cougar went past Jensen again, carrying two more cages full of tiny, fluffy kittens, and Jensen's eyes began to itch in spite of the antihistamines he'd taken.

"Nice kitty," Cougar said under his breath and over the comms system. "Nice, quiet kitty."

"Status?" Clay asked, over the earpiece.

"We're good," Jensen said, alternating between monitoring his tablet, trying not to rub his eyes, and keeping watch on the hallway with the elevator at the end.

The others filed past, carrying cages full of smelly, squirming, mewling, grumbling kittens and puppies. Some of the animals were partially shaved or were lying limply in their cages, and Jensen felt his stomach lurch.

Aisha paused beside Jensen on her way back, and said, "This is the last of the cages. Get ready to retreat."

"Do you want me to do a data dump?" Jensen asked, glancing into the lab at the equipment, then back at his VPN connection to the mainframe.

Aisha shook her head. "Not what we're here for."

Growling and snarling carried across the lab, from where Pooch was crouched. Over the comms Pooch said, "Get in the fucking cage, you ungrateful mutt."

An air pistol popped with a satisfied sound, and the snarling and Pooch's swearing stopped.

Pooch followed Aisha out, both of them carrying cages, and Jensen shrugged mentally at the lost opportunity to steal the data.

Aisha and Clay went past again, carrying packets of PE, detonators peeking out of their coverall pockets.

They worked in silence, and Jensen kept his hand on his sidearm. PE made him edgy, but not as edgy as people shooting at him did.

A couple of minutes of crawling across the lab floor in the half-light, and Clay and Aisha were done. Aisha nodded to Jensen, who let the lab doors swing closed again and followed them out.

Jensen scrambled out of the building, and into the back of the truck, slamming the doors closed as Pooch took off.

"Timing?" Pooch asked over the comms.

"Thirty seconds," Aisha said, and Pooch hit the accelerator, sending Jensen tumbling against a cage completely full of bewildered dog.

"Good dog," Jensen said, as the dog snapped at the bits of Jensen that were against the wire of the cage.

The crash as Pooch plowed the van through the mesh security gates was followed closely by the whoomp of the PE taking out the lab. Pooch gunned the accelerator and the first corner sent Cougar flying, right into Jensen and the very cranky dog.

Jensen flailed around, trying to keep his fingers away from the dog's teeth, and Cougar growled, "Stay still. I don't want to hurt you."

A moment later, Cougar shot a tranq dart into the dog through the mesh, without hitting Jensen accidentally.

A cat hissed and yowled beside Jensen's feet, and Cougar said, "Nice kitty, you wanna live with me?"

"No adopting the targets," Aisha called out over the whimpering and meowing. "They’ll all have to be cleared by a vet before they can be rehoused."

Cougar's fingers brushed against Jensen's chest, finding the control box for his comm underneath his coveralls and flicking it off, the earpiece suddenly silent in Jensen's ear.

"Huh?" Jensen said, and Cougar leaned in closer, his shoulder heavy against Jensen's.

"That's better," Cougar whispered. "We won't make our marriage work unless we have privacy and you occasionally listen to me."

Cougar's eyes gleamed in the ambient light leaking into the back of the truck.

"Our what?" Jensen asked, wondering if antihistamines made people hallucinate.

"Marriage," Cougar said, his voice calm and considered through his ski mask.

"Very funny," Jensen said. "Is this revenge for the constructed Knicks game?"

Cougar chuckled. "Hmm, that? I bet with you, remember?"

"For something else I've done then? It's the hat incident, isn't it?"

Cougar's arm settled around Jensen's chest, holding them both steady as the truck slowed and cornered. Jensen could hear Aisha's voice as she spoke into her comm, a muffled rise and fall in tone. She'd be giving Pooch directions.

"Seventeen times," Cougar said. "Proposals."

"Umm. I do that to everyone?"

"Four times, you've asked Pooch. Once, Clay. Never, Aisha. Aisha thinks you hate her. I don't think you hate me," Cougar said. 

"Fuck," Jensen said. 

Cougar hummed with laughter, and damn he was close in the darkness. "Sure."

The dog in the cage Jensen was leaning on started to retch.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," Jensen said, lifting his feet out of the splash as Cougar flicked their comms back live.

Clay said, "What are the swearing rules?"

"No swearing on comms," Jensen said. "Unless I'm bleeding. I’m not bleeding. Sorry."

 

The warehouse Pooch had driven the truck into was echoing and empty, an expanse of concrete contained by steel walls and roof. 

"Jensen?" Clay called, as Jensen jumped down off the tail of the truck, ski mask securely in place.

Jensen's bug scanner said the place was clean, and his chem sniffer found only residual traces of nitrates.

"Fertilizer has been stored here, but there's nothing to go boom," Jensen said, waving back at Clay on the truck.

"Let's unload then," Clay said. "So we can go home and shower the cat piss off."

Cougar slid past Jensen, rifle in his hands. "Door," he said.

Clay nodded. "Let's not get shot now." 

When the cages were lined up on the concrete, Jensen squatted down beside the least aggressive looking dog. "It'll be better now," Jensen said, scratching the dog's nose through the mesh. 

Aisha knelt down beside a cage full of cranky cats. "I'll stay with the animals until the handover and make my own way back. You can all go."

Clay said, "I don't…" but Aisha cut him off.

"I'm not leaving the animals here alone," Aisha said. "I'll take the four gallon drum of water from the cab of the truck and give them all drinks. Anyone who turns up here curious about the barking will get tranqed."

Jensen looked across to Clay, who shrugged and gestured at the truck. "We're out of here. I'll ride in the front with Pooch."

Pooch was pulling the second of the adhesive livery panels off the side of the truck. "Switch the plates," Pooch said over his shoulder to Jensen, and Jensen nodded.

The other plates for the truck were stashed in the back, inside a sack of kibble, and Jensen changed them over quickly while Pooch and Clay ran a perimeter check on the warehouse.

Jensen jumped in the truck when he heard Clay and Pooch slam the cab doors. At the warehouse entrance, Cougar swung up into the back of the truck. As they headed out, Jensen could see the lines of cages and hear the crying of one very determined cat over the background mewing and yipping.

The smell of urine in the back of the truck combined with the meaty odor of the sacks of dog kibble to make Jensen's nose stream. He slid and staggered through the wetness of the floor to the safe haven of the dog kibble sacks and gratefully climbed over one to the dry floor behind.

Cougar followed him, and Jensen could see the outline of Cougar's rifle where it was propped between sacks.

Jensen pulled his ski mask off and rubbed at his itchy eyes so hard that sparks flared on his retinas. He pulled out his earpiece and let some of the tension drop out of his shoulders. He should look at his laptop, see if he could pick up chatter from the various law enforcement agencies that would be gunning for them… Two minutes, then he'd check.

Beside him, Cougar was unloading his tranq pistol, the faint clicks and smooth slides comfortingly familiar.

"So?" Cougar asked, and Jensen opened his eyes again.

"What?" Jensen asked.

"Big day," Cougar said. "We rescue kittens. We agree to get married. I was thinking of New York, rather than Toronto."

Jensen blinked hard in the darkness.

"Which identity will you use?" Cougar asked. "We should pick names that are good together."

"Um," Jensen said. 

"I like your Harris identity," Cougar continued. "How does Lopez-Harris sound for our names? Or should it be Harris-Lopez?"

When Jensen turned his head, he could see Cougar was facing him, eyes glittering in the fractured streetlight that seeped into the truck through rivet holes.

"Are you joking with me?" Jensen asked. "This is still about the hat, isn't it?"

"You are stupid," Cougar said, and he put his fingers on Jensen's cheek. 

Jensen could smell lingering cordite over the pervasive urine stink in the truck.

Oh fuck, oh fuck, Cougar was kissing Jensen, just lips, then a flicker of tongue.

The cat urine and kibble smells melted away at the feeling of Cougar's mouth opening wider, their tongues slipping together wetly.

Cougar pushed Jensen back, so he was sprawled back over a sack of kibble and swung a leg across Jensen's knees, straddling him.

Porn. None of Jensen's porn was remotely as hot as the feeling of Cougar's mouth on his neck or the ecstatic moment when Cougar ground forward, coverall to coverall.

Jensen kissed back, deep and hard, and got his hands into the front of Cougar's coveralls, tugging at the velcro.

Cougar broke contact long enough to shrug his coverall arms down and off, and said, "This is the longest I’ve known you to be awake and silent.."

Jensen made a happy, gurgling noise and shoved Cougar's coveralls low enough to grab a handful of ass. 

The truck cornered, rolling both of them around. Cougar used the roll to snake a hand down Jensen’s pants, and grabbed his very pleased cock.

The truck swerved repeatedly, flipping them around in the darkness. Kibble dug into Jensen's knees and made his hands gritty, but he didn't care. He didn't care that his eyes were watering, or that Cougar nearly put a knee on Jensen’s laptop. He didn't even care that he was in probable danger from Cougar's rifle, which was uncomfortably close and pointed the wrong way. 

All Jensen cared about was that Cougar's mouth was now on his cock, doing bad things in the best possible way.

"Fuck," Jensen groaned, scrabbling around in the loose kibble. 

Cougar chuckled, dirty and slippery, and Jensen moaned and groped him harder.

The truck accelerated, the rumble from the road louder, and Jensen hung on to the back of Cougar's head. He was making a lot of noise, echoes ringing off the steel walls of the truck.

Cougar must have braced himself somehow, because he didn't shift as Jensen fell over the edge, long and loud through the waves of bliss.

Jensen spat out the loose bits of kibble that had ended up in his mouth and slumped back against the burst sack, waggling his hands helplessly at Cougar.

"Gimme…" Jensen said, finally getting his hands somewhere useful.

Cougar's cock was heavy in Jensen's mouth, and tasted of skin and sweat. This? This was better than all the hairy porn, even with Pooch’s deranged cornering. 

No shots, so whoever was the cause of Pooch's driving wasn't firing on the truck. That was all Jensen asked, right at that moment.

Cougar bucked up, getting all of his cock into Jensen's mouth, his fingernails driving into Jensen's shoulders, and started to come. The truck veered, doing the rapid left swing then right swing of a lane change at speed, and Jensen and Cougar hung on to each other. A moment later, Cougar fell back, kicking up kibble into Jensen's eyes.

Jensen flopped beside Cougar and rubbed his eyes, yet again.

"Comms," Cougar said, sounding like he'd run after the truck the whole journey.

Jensen found his earpiece and wriggled it back into place, and went to turn on his comms again.

Only he didn't have to, because Pooch and Clay were already live, laughing painfully loudly in his ear.

"Think they're done," Clay said. "You can stop playing dodgems with the traffic now."

Pooch said, "Are you sure? This is fun!"

"I hate you all," Jensen said, and he could feel Cougar's eyebrow twitch in response.

"So that was a fight we got to listen to?" Clay asked in Jensen's ear.

"Absolutely," Jensen said, settling back against the kibble sack and reassembling the front of his coveralls. 

Cougar's chest jerked with silent laugher, and Jensen propped his feet up on another sack.

At least Pooch had stopped swerving through traffic. Jensen might even get a nap in, if he was lucky.

 

Jensen strolled into Clay's living room, two days later. He was vaguely aware that he was favoring one hip, thanks to missing a breakfall off his kitchen counter that morning.

He didn't actually care that he had a bruise the size of a grapefruit on his thigh, and a limp. Worth it, because the reason he fell off his kitchen counter was already in Clay's living room, sprawled across an easy chair, sleepy-eyed and chewing on a lip.

Jensen dropped onto the sofa, and had to swallow when Cougar’s gaze landed on him.

Clay handed Jensen a mug of coffee and sat down on the far end of the sofa, and Pooch slung himself into the other easy chair.

"Where's Aisha?" Pooch asked, and Jensen was relieved that Clay and Pooch had decided not to continue the dissection of what had happened in the truck beyond the post-extraction debriefing.

"On her way," Clay said. "We could talk about what happened in the truck while we wait, if you want?"

Cougar swung his gaze to Clay, and a weak man might have buckled under that kind of heat.

Clay, however, was not weak. 

"Or we could speculate on why Jensen is walking funny," Pooch added. 

Cougar's eyes narrowed further, and the brim of his hat dipped in an implied threat.

Pooch sunk back into his easychair, and Clay smiled evilly.

The situation didn't get a chance to escalate because Aisha breezed into Clay's condo, calling out, "Stop it, whatever you all doing!"

"You missed out on Jensen's limp," Pooch called back.

"Damn," Aisha called out. She wandered into the living room a moment later, coffee mug in one hand, the other cradling her chest.

"Is this the one you wanted?" she asked Cougar, crouching down in front of him, her back to the others.

"Yes," Cougar said. "Thank you."

"Why are you giving him your cleavage?" Clay asked.

Aisha stood up again and then settled herself on the couch, between Clay and Jensen.

Cougar was holding a kitten, making cooing noises as he stroked the animal.

"Good kitty," Cougar said.

"That's a cat," Jensen said, because sometimes the obvious needed to be said, and he was obviously the obvious one to do the obvious right then. Obviously.

"The vet has cleared her to be adopted," Aisha said. "So she's all yours now."

Cougar's face softened and he smiled as the kitten climbed up his shirt and batted at his goatee.

"That's still a cat," Jensen said.

"Relax," Aisha said. "She's a rex. She won't give you allergies."

Jensen glared at Aisha. "She will. I can feel my eyes swelling already."

Aisha turned to Clay, and said, "I wish I'd been on comms when they were fucking in the truck. That would have been awesome!"

"What I don't get is how come our comms specialist didn't check his mic was switched off?" Clay said. 

"I hate you," Jensen said. "And I'm itchy now."

"Psychosomatic," Pooch said, and Cougar made happy, smiling noises at the kitten who had clambered up on to his shoulder and was nuzzling his hat.

"Consider the kitten my engagement present to the pair of you," Aisha said. 

Jensen turned to Aisha, ready to contradict her, and found himself being stared at by four sets of eyes. Well, five sets, if he included the kitten, who was glaring at him in a way that indicated Jensen would be smothered in his sleep that night.

Jensen gave up, and took a mouthful of coffee instead.

"Were your contacts satisfied with the way the extraction went?" Pooch asked Aisha.

"Very," Aisha said. "They sent thanks to all of you."

Cougar smooched at the kitten, and Pooch said, "Guess that was our annual charitable donation, right?"

"Put it on your tax returns," Clay said. "And your karma balance sheets."

END


End file.
